


Only what we manage to do lasts

by summerstorm



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Insomnia, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerstorm/pseuds/summerstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late-night conversation at a mountain resort. November Week, senior year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only what we manage to do lasts

**Author's Note:**

> My Hunger Games fic-writing enthusiasm was remarkably short-lived and left me with very little to show for it. This is a scene from a larger, ensemble high school AU that's languishing unfinished on my hard drive. Title from a Marge Piercy poem.

"You're doing this on purpose," Cinna says when Clove walks across the guest kitchenette. She makes it to the fridge without saying anything; her throat feels like it will rip painfully if she says anything after she wakes up. Brushing her teeth gets rid of the horrible taste in her mouth, but it doesn't smooth it out. She gets a carton of milk out, pours some into a glass and finds a cocoa powder container in one of the cupboards while it heats up in the microwave.

Then, she looks at Cinna. "I couldn't sleep," she says, shrugging. He's leaning against the little kitchen island, sipping on something that looks like coffee. "Assuming that's why you're here too, I don't think drinking that is going to help you."

"It's decaf," he says. His tone is so even it doesn't even sound defensive or like he's telling her this is none of her business. He always walks--talks--that perfect line between betraying emotion and sounding like a robot. Maybe he took a class on it in college. It wouldn't even be the weirdest thing she knows he's researched.

The microwave beeps.

"Is something wrong?" he asks while she stirs her cocoa. She shrugs again, inhaling the vapor from her drink. Something inside her just melts at the smell, and her throat welcomes the hot liquid when she takes a small sip to test the temperature. It's good. She allows herself to savor it before answering.

"I think I'm having flashbacks to sophomore year," she says. "Not nightmares or anything. But like I'm here and my body's like, hey, Clove, I recognize this situation, let's wake up at three in the morning feeling like we fell off a tree." She looks up. "What's wrong with you?" He just drinks more of his coffee in response, and she laughs. "Did inspiration strike? Is that why you're awake three hours before you have to get up?" She shakes her head. "That's just irresponsible."

"It is," he agrees. "I don't recommend it."

"Is that your official teacher stance on that? Don't be an asshole, don't use gendered insults, don't let the novel you're writing keep you up at night?"

He seems to think it over for a few seconds. "If you like."

"I'll take it under advisement," she says, hiding a smile behind the lid of her glass. She takes the two steps to the kitchen island, turning around and leaning back against it, next to him. She's too tired to push his boundaries tonight, so she leaves some breathing room between them, lightly knocking her knee against his as a greeting, a concession.

They stay like that for a while, in silence. She tries to meet his eyes once, twice, and there's something forced about the way he doesn't look back at her, like acknowledging her company is no longer okay, like their friendship or whatever this is has crossed over into inappropriate, suddenly, just this fall. She knows she's been too close for comfort for a while now, maybe a year, maybe since last winter, long before the lace-up incident, that day she swept into his classroom and lay down on his desk and he got up and walked away. She didn't think anything of it at the time. She only remembers it because of the tiny, pathetic excuse for a bruise she got on her knee when she stood up.

He could have told her where the cutoff point was. She could have tried to keep off that line if she'd known.

"There's nothing wrong with us, you know," she says. It's weird saying 'us,' but she doesn't take it back. He said that once, back in her sophomore year, in a moment not unlike this one. He'd just had a bad break-up, and her mom had just moved to California with Dan and her two brand-new stepsons. He meant it wasn't their fault that those people had left them.

A childish part of her wants to question it now, because it isn't just one thing--it's her mom, it's the fact that the only two people who seek out her company outside of school have known her since they were all in diapers, it's the way she spent over a year pretending to date her best friend and their official break-up did more for him than it did for her. And it had been her idea. Her stupid, ridiculous idea because she had a stupid, ridiculous thing for Cinna. Her-English-teacher Cinna. Fifteen-years-older-than-her Cinna. 

Those things always felt so circumstantial to her. She knew they mattered--there's a reason she hasn't told Cato, a reason she hasn't done anything about this--but she thought, well, if the time came, if they both wanted the same thing they'd be circumventable. Somehow. 

He's even got her thinking in bizarre words.

"There's nothing wrong with either of us," he says after what feels like forever, and yeah, that's not what she meant. She leaves the glass on the surface behind her and steps around him, stands in front of him. She's not ashamed of this. They can have a conversation about this like normal people. If he can't even talk to her like an adult, well, then maybe he's right and she should take a few dozen steps back.

"This is ridiculous," she says.

"Can't refute that." He shakes the contents of his glass around, probably just to have somewhere to look at other than at Clove, but she doesn't have time to call him on it before he stops, leaves the glass behind himself and looks at her. "What do you want me to do? The rules aren't there for no reason."

"I don't think this is covered by any of your rules."

He breathes out a resigned laugh. "I think I'd be kind of an asshole if I let you get involved with me."

"No," she says, shaking her head, running fingers through her hair, "this is not about you letting me do anything. This is about--"

"Clove," he interrupts, and that's it, that's _her_ breaking point, that's the moment she either pushes or leaves. And she's here, she's already here, she's already breached the boundaries that made this whole thing sustainable for him, and it's no effort, no conscious choice at all to stand on her toes and kiss his jaw, first, to steel herself; his cheek, then, and finally, the corner of his lips.

For a second, everything is still, and then his mouth opens slightly, catching hers when she moves away. He kisses back. He's kissing her back. Everything else--the looks, the little things, the ways he reached out and the ways he pulled back and put distance between them--all of that she could have misinterpreted, and she knows that, but this--this can't be misread. A hand comes up to her cheek, a large hand, warm from the coffee he was holding, and she's not making that up, either. She knows she isn't because she feels that warmth all the way to her stomach, and lower, lower, down between her thighs.

Eventually, that hand holds her still while he takes a step back. But not right away. Not even quickly enough to call the delay an accident.

"Clove," he says, his voice even, calm, betraying nothing more intense than wariness. She knows what he's doing--if he sounded angry, if he spoke to her like he's shutting a door in her face, she would instantly switch into defensive mode. His hand moves away carefully, finds the edge of the kitchen island to curl around.

Under normal circumstances Clove would be pleased to be taken seriously by someone like Cinna, Cinna with his composure and his cool demeanor and his subtle brilliance that no one could possibly blame Clove for wanting to ruffle. She's only human, after all. But this isn't normal circumstances. 

"Do you want my list of reasons why it's dumb that we're skirting around this and you should just go with it? I have one. I can give it to you, right now."

He blinks at her, still mostly expressionless. "I--no." He shakes his head lightly. "I don't. You should go back to bed."

"Not yours, I take it," she says, pushing now, going for broke.

"Not mine," he says. At least he acknowledges she's spoken. She half thought he'd just go on as if she hadn't. "We have an early morning tomorrow."

She sighs and picks up her glass, cradles its fading heat in her hands. At least this she can take to bed without judgment. "What about you?"

"I'll follow my own advice once I'm sure you won't stay alone here."

"And why would I do that," she says tonelessly, and heads down the hallway to her room.


End file.
